NPR on mad physicists, Neumann microphones, crashed elevators and Hitler

NPR's All Things Considered has a wonderful piece up about microphone maestro John Peluso, who is at the vanguard of an audiophonic boutique industry, creating perfect simulacra of vintage mics.

But how did the Pelusos get started in such a unique field? Well, John Peluso wouldn't want to bore you with the mundane details or anything, but it all began when he dragged the unconscious carcass of the mad German physicist Verner Ruvalds out of the shattered wreck of a crashed elevator. In turn, Ruvalds rewarded Peluso for his heroism by teaching him the "black art" of microphone creation... the very same black art that had allowed Ruvalds, thirty years earlier, to create Adolf Hitler's microphone, the Neumann CMV3!

The physicist imparted volumes about the soul of a microphone — how a change of a few invisible microns in the pocket of air behind the diaphragm makes a big difference to the ear. A micron is about one-sixtieth the width of a human hair.

"What he would tell me was … why it did what it did, why it sounded the way it did," Peluso says. "We would talk two or three hours at night after our work for nights, days and weeks and months on end."

Couple's Custom Microphones Carry Colorful Past [NPR]